Holy Hell

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by Patricia Feenan


  Daniel had suffered a really nasty bout of sore throat and swollen glands and a parishioner who had recently completed an alternative therapy medicine course, offered to come and ‘balance’ his bio rhythms. It sounds crazy now but it was an opportunity for her to practise her new skills. She said Daniel would get great benefit from the magic of her hands and besides, it was free. The priest had called in to see us and I chatted to him and hovered in and around Daniel’s room as she worked on him. After a while she came out and solemnly declared “Well that went really well and I think all his organs should be up in the morning.”

  I thanked her and went to put the kettle on. I was stunned to hear the guffawing from the priest and eventually realised the cause of his smutty mirth as he reduced her innocent remarks to his own uncouth level. He spluttered and coughed and I am now sorry that I saved him with a drink of water. It actually was a poor choice of words on her part and the other boys may have smiled and winked at each other as young boys do, but it was entirely inappropriate for a priest to react like that.

  A pattern of his social outings began to emerge. Families of boys welcomed him as he seemed to go out of his way to show interest in their lives. He was not a sportsman nor had ever been one but he knew what questions to ask the boys about the latest matches or cricket scores. To have a priest show a personal interest in you was pretty special in those days. As Daniel was achieving in so many areas, it was not surprising that he was singled out for this special interest. Many people complimented us on our boys and perhaps Daniel in particular, as he was the eldest and was the first to achieve many things.

  Daniel was a very impressive young man and he was, as first born, our pride and joy. Comments from all manner of people who crossed his path about his sweet nature, his quiet conscientious dedication to family, schooling and sport were frequent. A sports writer described a particularly good cricket innings by Daniel, of 124 not out, as follows.

  “He was impressive in everything he did. His footwork was impeccable and he hardly made a mistake all morning. But the thing that impressed me the most was the way he concentrated. He wasn’t going to give his wicket away cheaply. He hit anything loose with the power of a player twice his size but when a ball was pitched in line with the stumps he met it with a defiant dead bat. The young fellow’s name is Daniel Feenan and I’m sure you will hear more of him…”

  School reports described him as “…a happy leader, a responsible role model and a caring and committed student who is a pleasure to teach…” The word, ‘conscientious,’ appeared on nearly every assessment. Such interest in our boy reinforced our delight in him and gave us the very reasonable expectation that he would continue on the successful pathway on which he had embarked.

  He relished being given responsibility and so his generous disposition allowed him to be a wonderful brother and son. I remember him returning home from a shopping trip with his father and he had used all of his pocket money, which he had earned mowing our considerably large lawn, to buy me a rose in a cellophane cylinder. I still have the rose and he still has his generous nature. In hindsight, I can see that he was eager to please, but that shouldn’t take on sinister perceptions as he was just a little boy, loving his family and being grateful for whatever privileges he was awarded as eldest son.

  While remembering Daniel with warm pride, I cannot fail to mention his marvellous brothers. They were just as contented, loving and appreciative in so many individual and combined ways. The boys were very close, fiercely loyal to each other and were happiest when together. Whoever decided on a game to be played could rely on eager brothers to join in. They set about enjoying themselves with the minimum of fuss. Rules about what constituted a four or six in backyard cricket and what was the official try line in the footy games were quickly decided on. You see, living on a small farm, they did not have the luxury of being able to hop next door or across the road, if they didn’t like the game being played at home. They quickly established the pattern for leisure time and played happily for hours. When friends arrived with their kids, the same games with the same conditions applied and the fun just happened. As adults now, they still laugh about sixes being hit into the goats’ paddock or the swimming pool. No umpire needed there!

  I remember when Father Fletcher asked us if Daniel could be an altar server, officially. He had served Mass on a few occasions before Father Fletcher arrived in the parish when the incumbent was unavailable. This duty had been performed by a couple of older men in the past, probably because there were no younger folk to take on the role. I expressed hesitation because I did not want to offend the men who were currently in the position. Father said that he would square it with them and that they were too old anyway.

  He called in to say that Daniel had the guernsey and at that time, Luke showed interest and so he said they could both do it. He insisted that they were to wear soutanes (altar boy robes) and of course I sewed them with pride and diligence. Father had spoken and with my background of deference to a priest’s wishes, I was only too happy to oblige. Moreover, I was very proud that he had singled them out for what was an important role in Church life.

  When the boys said that Father had told them they didn’t need to wear shirts under the robes, for coolness, I think I was appreciative that the priest was casual and understanding about the boys’ dislike of formality. I now wonder if he was ogling both of them as they stripped their shirts off in the sacristy. This is a little room adjoining the altar in Catholic churches and it is where priests robe up for Mass and where the vases for the flowers and the brass cleaning gear is kept. I now know that the brass and silver weren’t the only things tarnished in that little room.

  It was about this time that Father asked me to be a Eucharistic Minister, a first for our parish. At that time, Dungog parish had two churches. One, St Mary’s at Dungog, was the larger church and was located near the catholic primary school, convent and presbytery and the second one was St Patrick’s at Clarence Town, a smaller church but closer to where we lived. I was humbled to be asked and protested that there were older and more fitting people who could carry out this special duty. I was shocked to hear him say that the local people were inbred and uneducated. I didn’t agree and assured him that he probably had many well educated parishioners if he cared to get to know them.

  His outlook and comment disturbed me. Nevertheless, I agreed to the suggestion that future faith development opportunities would flow from such a role and I accepted the position. I believe a male parishioner was inducted into the same role about this time but he was to be the Dungog Special Minister. We had a small ceremony at Mass soon after for it all to become official.

  A sour note of the commissioning was the loud exit from the church of a female parishioner protesting my appointment. I only mention it to highlight the climate of resistance that existed, in that era, to change. My aged mother was there, very proud, and so was Father Fletcher’s mother. A morning tea followed. This protesting lady was a neighbour of mine and Father promised to visit her and talk about her objections. He never did and this lady and her husband faded from the congregation.

  A simple pastoral visit would have reassured them that the Church needed to involve lay people in the various ministries because of declining priest numbers. He wouldn’t have got the cakes and he may have got some intelligent discussion but he chose to avoid the confrontation. They remained bitter but he still retained his idea that the priest’s opinion would and should go unchallenged.

  Power and self indulgence! There were other occasions where his power position might have been challenged and so we noticed how he managed situations. He avoided the places where he may have had to explain himself. The other families he befriended would know this. He praised us, pandered to our egos, sought advice that he didn’t feel compelled to take and generally groomed the lot of us into thinking that we were special.

  We formed an easy friendship with him and he seemed to get on well with the boys. We noticed that a lot of the
families he became close to had sons. I saw nothing sinister in this and just came to a view that he related better to boys. He certainly took an interest in their lives. During the next two years, when Daniel and Luke had become official altar servers, I was asked to adopt various ministries within our church and as I seemed to have quite a few roles, I voiced my concerns to the priest about sharing the jobs among other parishioners. He flattered my ego with comments about me being the best person for the jobs and sometimes truthfully admitted that no-one else wanted them anyway. In keeping with my traditional catholic background, I continued to be very active in our church community. My most treasured ministry of all was taking communion to sick and elderly people. I felt humbled and honoured.

  I remember taking communion, regularly, to an old couple who lived fairly close to the church. The dear old lady couldn’t absorb the knowledge that I was Father’s helper and used to say every Sunday,

  “Well that’s a pretty dress, Sister” as she had fixed in her head the opinion that I was a nun. She looked into my waiting family’s car one day and commented on John and the boys. I explained they were my husband and four sons and she said she preferred the old days when nuns didn’t marry. I tried with the explanation about Special Eucharistic Ministers helping the dwindling numbers of priests but it must not have been well understood as the very next week she said “Well that’s a pretty blouse, Sister.” Poor old souls probably went to God thinking that just too much had changed.

  Visits to our home by the priest became commonplace because after all, there was much parish business and involvement to be discussed. He sometimes brought his mother with him and my own mother seemed to enjoy her company. The priest sought advice and opinion from John and me, puzzling us that he would do so. We asked ourselves on more than one occasion what he had done before coming to our parish and whether he had previous parishioners write his letters back to the diocesan office. I don’t think either of us could have told him that we thought he was lazy. He was the priest. He had a pattern of visiting other families as well and probably flattered them into thinking that they were indispensable also.

  I was raised in a traditional Catholic family and had enjoyed a Catholic education. Priests and nuns held exalted positions in our parishes and my family worked hard to see that “Father” had a decent presbytery to live in and “Sister” also need not be worried by financial hardship, manual labour or an inadequate classroom. Those were the years of fetes and parish balls to raise money to make these dutiful concessions to the religious a reality. Mum sewed aprons, struck plant cuttings in decorated pots and cooked hundreds of cakes and scones while Dad lost his voice year after year running the chocolate wheel as he cajoled the parishioners to buy a ticket.

  I married a non-catholic man and, after twelve years of marriage, he made a commitment to the Church by becoming a Catholic. My two sisters, Christine and Moira, have similar stories with both their husbands converting to Catholicism after many years of marriage. I make this point only to highlight my opinion that the faith example shown by my sisters and myself encouraged the three men to want to experience the joy which we obviously gained from our faith.

  Given my background, I can see that I was predisposed to supporting the priest and parish. I was a reader at Mass, church cleaner, member of and then chairperson of the parish council, convenor of Advent and Lenten groups and organiser of many meetings and assemblies in relation to the Renewal process in our diocese.

  Strangely, after everything that has happened, I still miss the connection now and am lonely for the warmth of my faith.

  4

  The happy life continued and some of our visiting friends even contemplated emulating our particular recipe for rearing a happy family. Neighbouring properties were looked at and finances checked but no deals were done. By this time, our children were in upper primary school and secondary school was approaching. Issues of long bus travel and the idea of hours of homework became important. We too considered such issues but our love of our lifestyle and the boys’ obvious happiness with their lives convinced us to stay.

  Another consideration for us to continue living in the country was our involvement in our Catholic parish. By this time we had finally started to shake off the perception of us, by the local parishioners, as city dwellers and were now trusted with their friendships. It had been a slow apprenticeship with tentative greetings developing into enquiries about my new pregnancy and the birth and growth of the younger boys. I worked at the parish school at this time and that also helped with meeting people and bonding with families of similar persuasion. Weekly mass became a friendly affair with talk of the weather, cricket scores and vegetable gardens. Rainfall to our fellows meant a washout of their cricket while to our farming parishioners it was a godsend and there was much talk of inches fallen and the possibility of “follow up rain.” I remember one of the boys asking what it was and why did everyone want it. It was a great lesson about ‘the bigger picture’.

  Father Fletcher was often at our place, eating dinner, having cups of tea and seeking opinions about how to manage some aspects of the parish. By this time, we had formed a parish council and I was a member and later became chairperson for about five years.

  My husband had changed jobs and had been appointed to a newly created position of Financial Administrator of the Maitland Newcastle Diocese. A diocese is a geographical collection of parishes administered by a bishop. What kudos Fletcher sought from that appointment. He announced from the altar that he was very proud of John, it was going to be great to have a direct financial line to the bishop, and then he stuffed it up by saying that he himself was in no small way responsible for John getting the job because he “had made him what he is.” It was said tongue in cheek but was insulting and demeaning and galling as we realised just how many letters we had written for him and how many balance sheets John had produced for him as a member of his Finance Committee. A tally of hours given to meetings would be substantial. This was never a consideration until then because wasn’t it a blessing to help out with whatever skills you had. Helping Father was akin to helping God.

  As the years unfolded, some ominous clouds of uncertainty about our boys and Daniel in particular gusted across our particular sky. These caused us momentary unease but then were quickly dispersed because we believed that we, as a family, were strong and this strength was all we needed to manage life’s traumas. Daniel’s mood changes and occasional bursts of anger were surprising given his easy going nature, but not too worrying. Most of our friends had kids with mood issues and told us we were lucky to have had him with no temperament related incidents in his happy life until that stage.

  Instead of the terrible two’s he had a new little brother to play with and the naughty nines passed him by as he honed his cricket skills and ran free with three little brothers. In hindsight, this perception of ours that we were untouchable could be regarded as arrogant and in some aspects naive but we were trusting and trusted. Sure we had our disasters but didn’t every family have those?

  There was Dom’s broken arm, nose, and the spill off the bike that Easter at the farm. There were no recriminations for a boy who had sped carelessly down the steep hill on the little bike because the sight of the doctor calmly scrubbing, with a toothbrush, the gravel from the huge tear on his knee sent sympathy shivers down everyone’s spines. The laughing gas helped! I’m sure the doctor should have offered it to the mum and dad as well.

  Accidents to visitors at our little farm were common-place as the kids ran wild over the paddocks, rode bikes at foolhardy speeds down the track with no helmets and often no shoes and then of course no skin on knees and elbows. When I bought food for the weekend guests, bandaids and antiseptic were also on the shopping list.

  We had pneumonia on the ski fields. Try having warm air on a little boy in a caravan in minus three degrees. We had shingles on the eyelid at Movie World in Queensland. Try keeping sunglasses on a fourteen-year-old boy in Davey Jones’ Locker which was
a ride at the amusement park! The nebuliser worked well on the generated power on Fraser Island and I suppose the job of tester of all the amateur obstacle course equipment set up for a Help the Missions day at school showed school spirit at the outset and it was, after all, for charity. Being knocked unconscious was a minor inconvenience for one son and he did get a very special merit award from an embarrassed supervising teacher.

  One of the more spectacular accidents was the crash through the roof of the little pool motor shed, by a boy doing acrobats on the pool fence. The flash of blue flame as a piece of the roof severed the power cable to the electric cell was scary and proved the absolute necessity for earth leakage protection as the amateur gymnast lay amongst the water and sheared off cable. I recall that we abandoned the planned tea and scones with a visiting nun and hooked straight into a stiff whisky. The sensational nature of that event always leads to a recall and reflection when the boys are reminiscing about their childhood. I am grateful that they have such incidents in their memories to laugh about. So much of their childhood has been tainted now.

  5

  Our boy was changing and we had no idea why.

  When my father-in-law turned eighty, our family planned a birthday party for him at Adamstown, a suburb of Newcastle, where he lived. That was in December 1990. The evening went as planned until we realised that Daniel was missing. He had been playing cricket on the street with his brothers earlier and when they drifted into the backyard for the birthday cake he must not have come in with them. He wasn’t missed for a while and when he was, we found it hard to comprehend and were alarmed. Some people at the party helped us search the neighbouring streets and John even popped his head into a few local pubs to see if he was there or anyone had seen a fourteen-year-old.

 

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